‘May well be the most perfectly constructed, moving, and beautiful novel I've ever read’ ANN PATCHETT

‘One of the most important writers alive’ TASH AW

‘A wise and wonderful book’ ANNE ENRIGHT

Acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize winner Yiyun Li, returns with a sweeping historical epic, following two extraordinary musicians on the rise.

In Dublin, as the eighteenth century nears its end, a young musical virtuoso comes of age. John Field is able to hear notes in the air, and his family aspires for him to become the next Mozart. His talent takes him far – to England, France, and then Russia, where he becomes a famous pianist and composes dreamy melodies that enchant the night air. John calls them nocturnes, but the prodigy who immortalizes them is Chopin.

Oceans away in Pondicherry, French India, Adelaide Percheron embarks on a startling rise of her own. Orphaned at a young age, she is raised by her enterprising grandmother. Without the luxury of riches, only marriage seems to offer prosperity – until she sets her sights on a pianoforte. Driven by her love of music, she engineers her exodus, escaping to Paris and later to Moscow, as Napoleon’s army sets out to conquer the continent.

Peopled by rival prodigies, irate tutors and begrudging guardians, Yiyun Li’s magisterial novel depicts two aspiring musicians – destined to be husband and wife – in pursuit of success. As John and Adelaide each try to chart a path between talent and genius, profit and passion, they must decide what, and even who, is worth sacrificing along the way.

Drawing inspiration from the past but finding entirely new forms, Music Against the Night is an exquisite, exhilarating epic from a writer at the height of her powers.

‘Virtuosic in every way … a spellbinding read’ MAAZA MENGISTE, author of The Shadow King

‘Wondrous … wise and sad and beautifully-written’ LOUISE KENNEDY, author of Stations

‘A sharply observed tale of ambition, art and sacrifice that speaks to current times’ TASH AW, author of The South

Details

ISBN13: 9780008647810
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 352
Edition:
Publication Date: 27 Oct 2026
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.3(L)x2.8(W)440
Weight (gm): 440

Author Biography

Yiyun Li is the author of twelve books of fiction and non-fiction. She is the recipient of many awards, including a Guardian First Book Award, the Sunday Times Short Story Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, an International Writer Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a MacArthur Fellowship and a Windham-Campbell Prize, and she won the Pulitzer Prize for Memoir 2026. In 2026, Li was named as one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People of the Year. She is the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

‘Readers of Li will already know that she soars far above the well-meant strivings of lesser writers, occupying a luminous realm of her own … The result is pure readerly pleasure … Li conveys life without apparent effort. Major is the word’ Guardian ‘Book of the Day’
‘Music Against the Night may well be the most perfectly constructed, moving, and beautiful novel I've ever read. Yiyun Li is the best of all of us’ Ann Patchett, author of Whistler
‘Wondrous … brilliant on talent and ambition, disappointment and hope. It is wise and sad and beautifully-written, and witty too. I greatly admire Yiyun Li's work’ Louise Kennedy, author of Stations
‘I left this novel – her ninth work of fiction – keenly aware that I’d been in the presence of a world-class artist’ New York Times Book Review
‘As a meditation on the question of who we remember, and which lives fall by the wayside … it dazzles’ Daily Mail
‘Li balances beauty and futility in the tragic, lovely bargain that artists make with the world, with death, and with music itself. Music Against the Night is a wise and wonderful book’ Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren
‘Virtuosic in every way, Music Against the Night is a spellbinding read. Through Adelaide Percheron and John Field, we are forced to ask: What price must children pay to be ushered into the world of adults? At what cost, their talents and gifts? Yiyun Li gathers the unflinching answers that emerge and presents them to us with prose so beautiful it is a form of mercy’ Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King
‘At once a gorgeously reimagined epic and a sharply observed tale of ambition, art and sacrifice that speaks to current times. Yiyun Li is one of the most important writers alive, constantly in search of new ways of telling the most urgent stories’ Tash Aw, author of The South
‘Wonderful and bewitching … the kind of sui generis novel that doesn’t come around that often’ Boston Globe
‘A luminous epic’ Bookseller